


A Heartfelt Wish

by TrueColours



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Be Careful What You Wish For, Gen, Magic, Semantics, Wishes, calculating ben, descendants rewrite 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:47:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26559949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrueColours/pseuds/TrueColours
Summary: Every child in Auradon is granted a wish on their fifteenth birthday.Descendants Rewrite Fictober 2020: Day 20
Comments: 8
Kudos: 54
Collections: Descendants Rewrite Fictober 2020





	A Heartfelt Wish

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [ Nocturna-IV's Descendants Fictober 2020](https://nocturna-iv.tumblr.com/post/629196793182306304/descendants-fictober-2020-well-i-wanted-to). Prompt: When an AK turns 15, the Blue Fairy granted their wish. 
> 
> I deadass forgot who the Blue Fairy was (she's the fairy in Pinocchio), so my characterisation doesn't make much sense, but there we go.

Even the best-worded wishes tend to come with unintended consequences. The traditional wish from the Blue Fairy, which every child in Auradon was granted on their fifteenth birthday, was as much about teaching this lesson as it was about giving a coming-of-age present.

The Blue Fairy was a fairly benign granter of wishes. Her magic’s understanding of what language meant was reasonably intuitive, even to humans, and it was only moderately powerful. A person’s wish was usually granted in line with what was likely for their station in life. It was likely, for example, that Audrey would meet the Crown Prince at a winter ball, the year that they turned thirteen, and be chosen to open the dancing. It was likely that the Crown Prince would eventually become a king. A wish from the Blue Fairy was unlikely to turn the world upside down. All that was affected was _which_ of a set of already-possible outcomes would happen, and where, and when.

Ben thought very carefully about his fifteenth birthday wish. Not about what he wanted – that part was easy – but about how to make sure he actually got it. His desire was not a concrete item or a single event, but something rather more complex, and so careful wording was needed.

A wish had to be a single sentence. Some people fenced their wishes around with caveats and clarifications, held together with tortured grammar, but others said that every clause just added more room for misinterpretation, and Ben was inclined to agree. So, with notebook open and pen in hand, he hunted for a simple sentence that would put his point across.

 _I wish the children of villains were free_ was the heading at the top of his page, but it clearly needed some work before it would do for a wish. Even clarified to _I wish_ all _the children of villains were free from the Isle of the Lost_ , it wouldn’t do. ‘Free’ was a word notoriously open to interpretation, even between humans, so there was no knowing what the Blue Fairy’s magic would make of it. But Ben doubted that such a wish would transport the villains’ children to comfortable houses in thriving communities, or do anything to prevent the people of Auradon from shipping them right back to the Isle. The most likely outcome was that the wish would find the simplest solution: removing the barrier around the Isle altogether and releasing a horde of fully-fledged villains along with their children. Ben was wise enough to know not to wish for _that_.

Another common piece of advice was that if you wanted your wish to accomplish something, it was best to wish for the tools to do the thing yourself, exactly as you wanted it. Cinderella had _wished_ to go to the ball, for example, and handled the falling in love for herself. But getting the right tools was tricky too.

The king had the tools to liberate the Isle, but _I wish to be the king_ was _too_ closely in line with Ben’s station in life. Such a wish would be unlikely to have any perceptible effect at all; it would simply act as an extra guarantee on Ben’s succession, at the end of his father’s life, twenty or thirty years in the future. And _I wish to be the king_ now _? I wish to be the king_ soon _?_ Those were wishes right out of cautionary fairy tales. The magic, following the path of least resistance, would bring him to the throne in the most usual way. Ben might disagree with some of his father’s policies, but he didn’t want him _gone_.

A wish about villains that didn’t mention him, or a wish about him that didn’t mention villains. In the end Ben went for something in the middle. He named the outcome that he wanted to achieve, but left the mechanism up to the magic.

‘I wish I had the power to free the children of the Isle of the Lost,’ he said to the Blue Fairy on his fifteenth birthday. His wish, like every child’s, was spoken in secret. Nobody would know what he’d done.

The Fairy never spoke. She laughed at him as she waved her wand. Ben didn’t know if that was because his wish was funny, or if it was something she always did. He didn’t feel any different. He left the Fairy’s cottage, and his carriage conveyed him home to all the lavish ceremony of a royal coming-of-age birthday party.

Ben didn’t sleep soundly the night before he made his wish, or the night after. He knew he was sailing dangerously close to the wind. Kings had the power to do whatever they liked. Ben was a king’s son. King’s sons ascended to the throne when their fathers died. But he hadn’t wished for much power; just the power to free the children of the Isle. There were all sorts of ways that he could do that without having to be a king. Maybe he would find himself Duke of the Isle at sixteen. That was a plausible training role for a young Crown Prince. Maybe he would get the chance to put a word in the right ear. Maybe his father would start listening to him more. The Blue Fairy’s magic was a gentle magic, safe for children. It wouldn’t follow the cruellest path when he’d left so many others open.

It was about a month later that Adam first raised the idea of abdicating.

‘Why have every succession occur in the middle of a national emergency?’ he said. ‘Monarchs dropping dead in the traces; heirs trying to take over in all sorts of unfavourable circumstances. I’d much rather pass on my crown while I’m still fit to do it. Yes, Belle, I know he’s young, but I’ll be there to help him; that’s the point. All he’ll have to do is issue a few token proclamations, to begin with. What do you say, son?’

It was quite something to see the will of a king quietly altered by a wish, and so Ben learned his lesson about the dangers of magic, from a good fairy, in a controlled context, exactly as intended.

Over the next year, he also came to fully appreciate how slippery words of magic could be, even when they didn’t lead to parricide. Having power, he learned, was different from being able to wield it effectively in the face of an angry father, a recalcitrant council and a mountain of work. Sometimes, Ben wondered if he should have just wished for the power to ignore distractions.

Mal was part fairy. He asked her one day if she could think of any better way that he could have phrased his wish.

‘Honestly, I think you did pretty well,’ she said once she’d mulled it over, ‘especially since you didn’t want people knowing what you’d wished for. I suppose you could have asked for the _opportunity_ to help the VKs, but…no, the opportunity could pass you by without you even knowing. Much better to have the power, even if it’s hard to use.’

‘“I wish I _could_ help the children of the Isle,”’ Uma said laconically, when Ben asked her the same question. ‘ _Having the power_ to do something isn’t the same as _being able_ to do it.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Ben asked.

‘If you want an example,’ Uma replied, ‘we’ve all got the power to kill people, right here in our hands. Doesn’t mean everybody can do it.’

 _I wish I could help the children of the Isle_. Sometimes the simplest, most heartfelt wishes are the best.


End file.
